…Get children to spend more time outdoors in the winter

Give them squeeze bottles filled with water and food coloring, then send the kids outside to “color” in the snow.

Cross-country ski in your own backyard.

Explore different sledding hills in your area.

Feed the birds. Make your own bird feeders by smearing big pinecones with peanut butter, then roll them in birdseed.

Get outside and join them. It will be hard for them to come back inside if you are out there playing with them.

—Kristin Sundin Brandt ’94

Brandt, who has two children, is vice president at Sundin Associates (kristin-sundin-brandt.com), a marketing and advertising agency in Natick, Mass. She is the executive editor and co-host of “Manic Mommies,” a weekly podcast for parents seeking a work-life balance, and a member of the National Wildlife Federation’s Founding Moms Advisory Board, which helps